Clive Lewis - That Hideous Strength

“I see. Well, no doubt your action (speaking quite without prejudice) could be interpreted along those lines. You made it quite clear that this-ah-Personage-when found, was to be treated with the greatest deference and-if you won’t misunderstand me-caution?”

“Oh yes, sir.”

“Well, Mr. Stone, I am, on the whole, and with certain inevitable reservations, moderately satisfied with your conduct of this affair. I believe that I may be able to present it in a favourable light to those of my colleagues whose good will you have, unfortunately, not been able to retain. If you can bring it to a successful conclusion you would very much strengthen your position. If not . . . it is inexpressibly painful to me that there should be these tensions and mutual recriminations among us. But you quite understand me, my dear boy. If only I could persuade-say Miss Hardcastle and Mr. Studdock-to share my appreciation of your very real qualities, you would need to have no apprehensions about your career or-ah-your security.”

“But what do you want me to do, sir?”

“My dear young friend, the golden rule is very simple. There are only two errors which would be fatal to one placed in the peculiar situation which certain parts of your previous conduct have unfortunately created for you. On the one hand, anything like a lack of initiative or enterprise would be disastrous. On the other, the slightest approach to unauthorised action-anything which suggested that you were assuming a liberty of decision which, in all the circumstances, is not really yours-might have consequences from which even I could not protect you. But as long as you keep quite clear of these two extremes, there is no reason (speaking unofficially) why you should not be perfectly safe.”

Then, without waiting for Mr. Stone to reply, he hung up the receiver and rang his bell.

“Oughtn’t we to be nearly at the gate we climbed over?” said Dimble.

It was a good deal lighter now that the rain had stopped, but the wind had risen and was roaring about them so that only shouted remarks could be heard. The branches of the hedge beside which they were tramping swayed and dipped and rose again so that they looked as if they were lashing the bright stars.

“It’s a good deal longer than I remembered,” said Denniston.

“But not so muddy,” said Jane.

“You’re right,” said Denniston, suddenly stopping.

“It’s all stony. It wasn’t like this at all on the way up. We’re in the wrong field.”

“I think,” said Dimble mildly, “we must be right. We turned half left along this hedge as soon as we came out of the trees, and I’m sure I remember-”

“But did we come out of the copse on the right side?” said Denniston.

“If we once start changing course,” said Dimble, “we shall go round and round in circles all night. Let’s keep straight on. We’re bound to come to the road in the end.

“Hullo!” said Jane sharply. “What’s this?” All listened. Because of the wind, the unidentified rhythmic noise which they were straining to hear seemed quite distant at one moment, and then, next moment, with shouts of “Look out!” “Go away you great brute! “-“Get back “-and the like, all were shrinking back into the hedge as the plosh-plosh of a horse cantering on soft ground passed close beside them. A cold gobbet of mud flung up from its hoofs struck Denniston in the face.

“Oh, look! Look!” cried Jane. “Stop him. Quick!”

“Stop him?” said Denniston who was trying to clean his face. “What on earth for? The less I see of that great clod-hopping quadruped, the better.”

“Oh, shout out to him, Dr. Dimble,” said Jane, in an agony of impatience. “Come on. Run! Didn’t you see?”

“See what?” panted Dimble, as the whole party, under the influence of Jane’s urgency, began running in the direction of the retreating horse.

“There’s a man on his back,” gasped Jane. She was tired and out of breath and had lost a shoe.

“A man?” said Denniston: and then, “By God, sir, Jane’s right. Look, look there! Against the sky . . . to your left.”

“We can’t overtake him,” said Dimble.

“Hi! Stop! Come back! Friends-amici-amici “bawled Denniston.

Dimble was not able to shout for the moment. He was an old man, who had been tired before they set out, and now his heart and lungs were doing things to him of which his doctor had told him the meaning some years ago. He was not frightened, but he could not shout with a great voice (least of all in the Old Solar language) until he had breathed. And while he stood trying to fill his lungs all the others suddenly cried “Look” yet again: for high among the stars, looking unnaturally large and many legged, the shape of the horse appeared as it leaped a hedge some twenty yards away, and on its back, with some streaming garment blown far out behind him in the wind, the great figure of a man. It seemed to Jane that he was looking back over his shoulder as though he mocked. Then came a splash and thud as the horse alighted on the far side; and then nothing but wind and starlight again.

“You are in danger,” said Frost, when he had finished locking the door of Mark’s cell, “but you are also within reach of a great opportunity.”

“I gather,” said Mark, “I am at the Institute after all and not in a police station.”

“Yes. That makes no difference to the danger. The Institute will soon have official powers of liquidation. It has anticipated them. Hingest and Carstairs have both been liquidated. Such actions are demanded of us.”

“If you are going to kill me,” said Mark, “why all · this farce of a murder charge?”

“Before going on,” said Frost, “I must ask you to be strictly objective. Resentment and fear are both chemical phenomena. Our reactions to one another are chemical phenomena. Social relations are chemical relations. You must observe these feelings in yourself in an objective manner. Do not let them distract your attention from the facts.”

“I see,” said Mark. He was acting while he said it-trying to sound at once faintly hopeful and slightly sullen, ready to be worked upon. But within, his new insight into Belbury kept him resolved not to believe one word the other said, not to accept (though he might feign acceptance) any offer he made. He felt that he must at all costs hold on to the knowledge that these men were unalterable enemies: for already he felt the old tug towards yielding, towards semi-credulity, inside him.

“The murder charge against you and the alternations in your treatment have been part of a planned programme with a well-defined end in view,” said Frost. “It is a discipline through which everyone is passed before admission to the Circle.”

Again Mark felt a spasm of retrospective terror. Only a few days ago he would have swallowed any hook with that bait on it; and nothing but the imminence of death could have made the hook so obvious and the bait so insipid as it now was. At least, so comparatively insipid. For even now . . .

“I don’t quite see the purpose of it,” he said aloud.

“It is, again, to promote objectivity. A circle bound together by subjective feelings of mutual confidence and liking would be useless. Those, as I have said, are chemical phenomena. They could all, in principle, be produced by injections. You have been made to pass though a number of conflicting feelings about the Deputy Director and others in order that your future association with us may not be based on feelings at all. In so far as there must be social relations between members of the circle it is, perhaps, better that they should be feelings of dislike. There is less risk of their being confused with the real nexus.”